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In case you missed it, the cameras were rolling at the APS 23rd Annual Convention in Washington, DC. Watch Jared M. Bartels from the University of Minnesota present his poster session research on “Fear of Failure, Self-Handicapping, and Negative Emotions.”

Bartels and his co-author William E. Herman wanted to find out whether self-handicapping, reduces negative emotional responses to failure. An example of self-handicapping would be thinking to yourself that you are not good at public speaking, and then doing poorly on a presentation. Bartels and Herman studied participants’ responses to scenarios that incorporated academic failure with and without self-handicapping. They also measured participants’ fear of failure.

The researchers found that for students high in fear of failure, self-handicapping reduced the intensity of negative emotions associated with actually failing.